Travel Agent Runaway Bay

I have just returned from Paris and it was snowing as I took the train to the airport. I only had several days there with friends but I had been years before so it was really a revisit to some of the main sights. There are some good day trips close by if you are there for longer and you want to get out of town for a while.

But a few things I want to pass on about Paris that may influence when you visit there. The first Sunday of the month sees all the museums and sites of interest with free entry. In the peak season the queues can get quite long for these places so you may not get to see too many. However it’s a good way to “preview” a place and see if it will interest you enough to pay to go again later. Spring and autumn less crowded and in early December I had no trouble at all although there were still plenty of visitors at each place I visited.

First I climbed the Arc de Triomphe. It was a narrow circular stairway with 234 steps to get up to the viewing platform so a good heart starter. You can get very good views from here especially down the Champs-Elysees, to the Eiffel Tower and further afield – that is if the fog isn’t as thick as it was when I went up.

Next I went to the Pantheon which looks similar to the Rome version. This is a magnificent building - originally an abbey but now functions as a burial place for famous French heroes. Madam Currie is the only female to have the honour of being buried here alongside her husband. In the centre of the main dome is a pendulum which was used as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth.

Close by is the Notre Dame Cathedral located on an island in the middle of the Seine River. Another magnificent building with beautiful artwork. You can almost imagine the hunchback up the top ringing the bells.

Of course no trip to Paris is complete without a visit to the Louvre Museum which houses the famous Mona Lisa. Don’t be disappointed at the size of the painting as it’s much smaller than most people imagine. Of course there is much more than this to see and you could spend many hours here if you wanted. The museum was for many hundred years a palace for royalty and is massive. Entry is through a glass pyramid in the central courtyard.

A visit to the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre-Coeur Bascilica is on a must see list too and I did those on the second day. At the Eiffel Tower you can join the queues to go up to various levels of viewing platforms or you can marvel at it from the park next door. At the Sacre-Coeur there is now a funicular train going most of the way up the hill if the steep climb gets too much. You can use the same ticket as one used for the train if you came by metro.

A relatively new feature of Paris I was impressed with is its bicycle “stations” or Velo Libre. These are scattered around the city area of Paris and often near the tourist attractions. These stations are where you can collect a bike to ride on and you can drop it off at any bike station. You need a credit card to secure a deposit for the bike but the cost is free for the first half hour then charges begin after that. So you can collect a bike for example near Arc de Triomphe and ride over to the Eiffel Tower and drop off the bike then pick up another after a walk around and ride to say the Louvre and do the same thing. A great way to get around especially on Sundays when the traffic is less and some of the roads by the river are closed to vehicles.

There are dedicated bike lanes in some areas but on other main streets you have to share the bus/taxi lane. If you are a bit nervous at riding this may not suit as no one wears a helmet and the cars can get quite close to you. I found it fine as long as I took it easy and obeyed the stop lights. It certainly helped get greater distances than just walking.

Ah Paris!!